Big announce Today! Microsoft release to Public Preview a New Microsoft Teams App which had have a huge changes into performance, as many people complains that previous version consume a lot of memory, was not fast enough and stuff like that.
Now the new Microsoft Teams desktop client, in order to provide a faster, simpler, and more flexible experience. This new client installs and loads faster, so the experience to join meetings will be quicker, letting you to focus on the business and forget about those issues.
A simple way to enable this new app, user will be able to see a new toggle switch to try the new Teams. But an admin might be able to choose if they want to allow users to see this option. In this post I will show you how you can accomplish this task using TAC and Powershell, so you can decide if block or allow for some users, up to you!
Image 1. New Toggle Switch to change to New Teams App
if you want to control which user can see the toggle, we will need to use the Teams admin setting UseNewTeamsClient of course we need to create a policy for that or set this attribute into an existing one.
Configure using Teams Admin Center
- Sign in to Microsoft Teams Admin Center (admin.teams.microsoft.com) with Teams Admin rights.
- Select Teams > Teams update policies
- You will be able to modify an existing one (Global) or create a new one. In this example i will modify global, so everyone in my company will be able to see toggle view.
As you can see, under Use New Teams Client, it will allow you to chose between three different options.
Microsoft controlled
Default. The value lets Microsoft control whether the Teams (preview) toggle switch is shown or not based on product readiness
User can choose
Use this value to show the new Teams toggle switch, to let users opt into the new Teams, and switch back if they need to.
Not enabled
Use this value to hide the new Teams toggle switch. Users won’t be able to opt in to the new Teams
So, as today, the first two options will allow user to see the toggle switch. Last one will be the one to block the toggle to be displayed.
Configure using Powershell
In order to setup this policy using powershell you will need to get the latest version (4.9.1 or greater) of Teams Powershell Module.
Run as follows to setup Global Policy to let users to use toggle switch , this policy will be applied to all users.
Connect-MicrosoftTeams
Set-CsTeamsUpdateManagementPolicy -identity Global –UseNewTeamsClient UserChoice
if you want to disable the toggle view, run
Set-CsTeamsUpdateManagementPolicy -identity Global –UseNewTeamsClient AdminDisabled
What do I need to do now?
Decide if you want to allow all users in your tenant to decide to use New Teams App or not. If the answer is yes, let Microsoft Controlled or User Can Choose as Global Policy, and create a new one to put not enabled (if required) and assign per user.
But if you think that will be the best to test with a small group, and until this is in GA apply to all users, well . Global might be set to not enabled , and create a new policy to set to users can choose and apply this new policy to the pilot group.
Hope this helps.